“Please, sir, it wasn’t Tomlin.”
“Not Tomlin--not Tomlin! What d’ you mean, boy? Who was it, then?” said
the Doctor, his eyebrows going up on to his forehead, which was all
quite dewy from the hard work.
“It was young Carlo--I mean Westonleigh,” said Slade.
“Viscount Westonleigh!” gasped the Doctor, his mouth dropping right open
in a very rum way by itself, if you understand me.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why in the name of Heaven didn’t you say so? How _dare_ you stand
there and watch me commit an offence against law and justice? How did
you dare to watch me ignorantly torture an innocent boy, and that boy--
Go! go both of you--you, Slade, and you, Butler, also. Go instantly, and
send Browne and Viscount Westonleigh to me. Good God! this is
terrible--terrible!”
So that was his howler, and to see him in his chair looking so old and
haggard and queer was rather frightful. He seemed suddenly struck with
limpness, and his hands shook like anything, and so did his bald head;
and he puffed as if he’d been running miles; and Slade said afterwards
that he looked jolly frightened too. He put his face in his hands as we
went out, and we heard him say something about Lord Golightly and ruin,
and universal opprobrium on his gray hairs, though really he had none
worth mentioning; and Slade said he almost thought the Doctor was
actually going to cry, if such a thing could be possible.
We sent Browne off to him, but Carlo wasn’t to be found. He’d been seen
yelling somewhere, but couldn’t be traced. What had happened was this:
Tomlin, in obedience to Steggles, had kept rather close after prayers;
in fact, he had spent the half-hour to bed-time in a cupboard in the
gymnasium, under the rubber shoes. So Browne, not finding him, had told
the first boy he saw to do so; and that boy happened to be Steggles, who
had been at his heels ever since he went to the Doctor. Steggles is a
miserable, unwholesome thing, but his strategy certainly comes off. Once
having the message, all was easy, because Steggles merely found Carlo,
and told him the Doctor wanted him. The result was much better than even
Steggles hoped; because, though the Doctor generally fell on a chap who
came to be flogged straightaway, like he did on Carlo, it wasn’t often
anybody got such a frightful strong dose as Carlo had. Afterwards, when
taxed, Steggles swore, of course, that he thought he was talking to
Tomlin. Seeing the likeness, this might have been perfectly true, though
in their secret hearts everybody knew Steggles too jolly well to really
believe it.
Carlo didn’t turn up, and after an hour or more of frantic rushing
about, somebody said perhaps he’d jumped down the garden well owing to
the indignity of what he’d got. But soon afterwards, in reply to a
special telegram sent for the Doctor by the people at the railway
station, an answer came from Golightly Towers, twenty miles off, where
the purple-veined lord, father of Carlo, hung out. The kid, it seemed,
had sloped down to Merivale railway station after his licking, and taken
a ticket right away for Golightly, and gone home by the last train but
one that night. He never returned either, but next day his father
dropped in on Doctor Dunston, and Fowle managed to hear a little of what
went on through the key-hole. He said that as far as he could make out
the lord didn’t think much of the matter, and said one thrashing more or
less wouldn’t mar Carlo. But the lord’s wife, who didn’t come, evidently
took the same view as Carlo, for he never returned to Dunston’s again.
The Doctor’s howler ended in his losing the little bounder altogether,
which, with his views about lords in general, and especially earls, must
have been frightfully rough on him.
As to Tomlin, actually the Doctor never flogged him after all! I think
his spirit had got a bit broken, and though Tomlin went at the end of
the term, he wasn’t expelled, but withdrawn by mutual consent, like you
hear of things in Parliament sometimes. He wouldn’t have gone at all,
but he refused to say who was under the medlar-tree with him, and stuck
to it; and Steggles absolutely declined to give himself up, because, as
he truly said, he had more than kept his promise to Tomlin about helping
him out of the mess.
So Tomlin went. He was a very decent little chap indeed, and nearly all
the fellows at Dunston’s promised faithfully to buy their hats entirely
at his place in Bond Street, London, when they left school; which will
be very good business for him if they do. As for the Doctor, it’s a
peculiar fact that for a whole term after Carlo’s affair he never
flogged a single chap. He didn’t seem to have any heart in him, somehow,
owing to the rum way the howler told upon his spirit.
Morrant’s Half-Sov.
Of course, as Steggles said truly, the rummest thing about the whole
story of Morrant’s half-sov. was that he should have one. Morrant, in
fact, never got any pocket-money in his life, owing to his father being
a gentleman farmer. Not that he had nothing. On the contrary, his
hampers were certainly the best, except Fowle’s, that ever came to
Dunston’s, both for variety and size and fruit. The farming business,
Morrant said, was all right from his point of view in the holidays, as
the ferreting, both rats and rabbits, was good enough for anything, and
three packs of hounds met within walking distance of his farm, one pack
being harriers, which Morrant, by knowing the country well, could run
with to a certain extent while they hunted. But Morrant’s father was so
worried about chemical manures and other farming things, including the
price of wheat, that he didn’t see his way to giving Morrant any
pocket-money. He explained to Morrant once that he was putting every
halfpenny he could spare into Morrant’s education, so as to save him
from having to become a gentleman farmer too when he grew up.
But Morrant didn’t get a farthing in a general way; so when there
arrived a hamper with an envelope in it, and in the envelope a bit of
paper, and in the paper a half-sovereign, Morrant was naturally
extremely surprised and also pleased. It came from his godfather, who
had never taken any notice of Morrant for thirteen years, though he was
a clergyman. But the previous term Morrant had got a prize for Scripture
history, and when that came to his godfather’s ears, through Morrant’s
mother mentioning it in a letter, he wrote and said it was good news,
and very unexpected. So he sent the money; and really Morrant was quite
bewildered with it, being so utterly unaccustomed to tin even in the
meanest shape.
He had a friend by the name of Ferrars, who was much more religious than
Morrant himself, and knew even more Scripture history; and as a first
go-off he asked Ferrars what he ought to do with the money. And Ferrars
said that before everything Morrant ought to give a tithe to charity.
But when it was explained to Morrant that this meant chucking away a
shilling on the poor, he didn’t take to the idea an atom. He said his
father had set him against giving tithes, not believing in them very
much.
So Morrant went to Gideon, who knew much more about money than Ferrars,
and he said on no account to give a penny away in charity, because
Morrant wasn’t up in the subject, and might do more harm than good. He
also said that in the case of a chap who had never had a half-sovereign
in his life before, it was a great question whether he could be expected
to give away any; and Morrant said there was no question about it at
all, because he wasn’t going to. And it made even a difference in his
feeling towards Ferrars, for, as he very truly said, a chap who advised
him like Ferrars had couldn’t be much of a friend.
Having decided to keep it, the point was what to do with it. The novelty
of the thing staggered him, and, knowing he would probably never have
another half-sovereign till he grew up, Morrant felt the awful
importance of spending it right, because an affair once bought could
never be replaced if lost. And, as Bray said, “If you get used to a
thing, like a watch-chain or a tie-ring, and then lose it, the feeling
you get is much worse than if you had never had it at all.”
I thought about it too for Morrant, as he once sent me a brace of
rabbits by post, shot by himself in the holidays. I pointed out to him
that half a sovereign was a most difficult sum really, being, as it
were, not small and not exactly huge, and yet too much to make light of,
especially in Morrant’s case. If he had got a sovereign, for instance,
he might have bought a silver watch-chain to take the place of one which
he had. It was made of the hair of his grandmother when she was young,
and Morrant didn’t much like it, and had often tried to sell it and
failed. But ten bob wouldn’t buy a silver chain worth having. Morrant
had an idea about braces, and of course he might have bought such braces
for the money as would have been seldom seen and very remarkable; but
braces are a poor thing to put good money into, and I dissuaded him.
There came a change in Morrant after he had had the half-sovereign for
four days and not thought of anything to buy. He began to worry, because
time was going on and nothing being done. Fellows gave him many ideas,
some of which he took for an hour or two, but always abandoned after a
while. Murray told him of a wonderful box of new conjuring tricks which
was to be had, and he nearly bought it, but luckily remembered just in
time that the new tricks would get old after a while, and some might be
guessed and would become useless. Then Parkinson had a remarkably
swagger paint-box, and knew where Morrant could get another with only
three paints less for ten shillings. And Morrant as near as a toucher
bought that, but happened to remember he couldn’t paint, and didn’t care
in the least about trying to. Corkey minimus said he would run the risk
and sell Corkey minor’s bat to Morrant for ten bob, the bat having cost
twelve. The bat was spliced and Corkey minor was in Australia, having,
luckily for him, sailed to sea just before an exam., owing to a weak
lung. If Morrant had played cricket he would certainly have bought the
bat; but there again, even though Gideon told him he might easily get
ten-and-six or eleven shillings for the bat next term, he hesitated, and
finally Gideon bought the bat himself--as an investment, he said.
Well, there was Morrant stuck with his tin. He wouldn’t even change it,
because Gideon warned him against that, and told him his father knew men
who had made large fortunes simply by not changing gold when they had
it. Gideon said there was nothing like never changing gold; so Morrant
didn’t, only of course there was no good in keeping the money specially
stitched into a private and unknown part of his trousers, as he did, for
safety.
That half-sovereign acted like a regular cloud on Morrant’s mind; and
then came an extraordinary day when it acted more like a cloud than
ever, owing to its disappearing.
Morrant had sewn it, with a needle and thread borrowed from the
housekeeper, into a spot at the bottom of his left trouser-pocket, and
from this spot it mysteriously vanished in the space of two hours and a
half. He had changed in the dormitory for “footer,” and left his
trousers on his bed at three o’clock, returning to them at 4.45. Then,
naturally feeling for his half-sovereign, he missed it altogether, and
when he examined the spot he found his money had been cut out of the
bottom of the pocket with a knife.
Very wisely Morrant, seeing what a tremendous thing had happened, did
not make a lot of row, but just told about ten chaps and no more. I was
one. My name is Newnes. I said:
“The first question is, Who knew your secret hiding-place?” and Butler
said it was a very good question and showed sense in me. Butler is, of
course, high in the Sixth.
Morrant, on thinking it over, decided that three chaps, or four at the
outside, knew his hiding-place. They were Ferrars, Gideon, Fowle, and,
Morrant thought, Phipps. So first Butler, who very kindly undertook the
affair for Morrant, had Phipps brought up. Phipps stammers even when
most calm and collected, and, being sent for by Butler, caused him so
much excitement that Butler made him write down the answers to his
questions, and even then Phipps lost his nerve so that he spelled “yes”
with two s’s. But he solemnly put down and signed that Morrant had never
told him where he kept his half-sovereign; and after he had gone Morrant
said that, now he came to think about it, he felt sure Phipps was right.
Which reduced the matter to Ferrars, Gideon, and Fowle; and the first
two were set aside by Morrant because Ferrars was, of course, his
personal friend, despite the passing coldness about Ferrars’ advice, and
Gideon, though very keen about money and a great judge of it, was known
to be absolutely straight, and had never so much as choused a kid out of
a marble.
Butler said:
“That leaves Fowle; and if you told Fowle you were a little fool.”
And Morrant said:
“We were both Roman Catholics by religion, and that makes a great tie;
and though many chaps hate Fowle pretty frightfully, I’ve never known
him try to score off me, except once, when he failed and apologized.”
And Butler said:
“That’s all right, I dare say; but he’s a little beast and a cur, and
also a sneak of the deadliest dye. I don’t say he’s taken the money,
because that’s a libel, and he might, I believe, go to law against me;
but I do say that only one out of three people could have taken it, and
we know two didn’t, therefore Q.E.D. the other must have.”
Morrant didn’t follow this very clever reasoning on the part of Butler.
He only thought that Fowle, being a Roman Catholic, would never rob
another; and Butler said he would, because it wasn’t like Freemasons,
who wouldn’t score off one another for the world. He explained that
history was simply choked up with examples of Roman Catholics scoring
off one another.
Butler said:
“Religion’s quite different. One Buddhist is often known to have done
another Buddhist in the eye, so why shouldn’t one Roman do another? In
fact, they have thousands of times, as you’ll know when you come to read
a little history and hear about the Spanish Inquisition. Especially this
may have happened seeing that Fowle is the chap. I tell you candidly
that, in my opinion, after a good deal of experience of fellows in
general, I take Fowle to be the most likely boy in Merivale to have done
it; and knowing him to have had the secret of the private pocket reduces
it to a certainty in my mind. Tax him with it suddenly in the night, and
you’ll see.”
Morrant slept in the same dormitory with Fowle, and that night the whole
room was woke up at some very late hour by the sound of Morrant taxing
Fowle. Fowle took a long time to realize what was being said, and when
he was awake enough to realize what Morrant was getting at, he showed
tremendous indignation, and asked what he had ever done that such a
charge should be brought against him, especially at such a time. He
reminded Morrant that they were of the same way of thinking in holy
affairs, and said he was extremely sick with Morrant, and thought
Morrant’s religion must be pretty rocky if it allowed him to wake a chap
up in the night and charge him with such a crime. In fact, Fowle went on
so that Morrant finally apologized rather humbly.
From that day forward began the extraordinary disappearance of coin in
general at Dunston’s. Shillings constantly went, and also half-crowns.
Gideon got very excited about it, and said watches must be kept and
traps set. There was evidently a big robbery going on, and Gideon said
if the chaps weren’t smart enough to catch the thief they deserved to
lose their tin. Certainly he never lost a penny himself. But, despite
tremendous precautions, money kept going in small sums. Ferrars was set
to watch in the pavilion, I remember, during a football match, and
Morrant himself, and even Butler once or twice, also watched. Some chaps
thought it was the ground-man; but as money also disappeared at school,
that showed it couldn’t be him. And then there was a theory that it
might be a charwoman who came from Merivale twice a week. I believe she
was a very good charwoman of her kind, and Ferrars, who is great about
helping the poor and so on, told me she was a very deserving woman with
a husband at home who drank, and children too numerous to mention. Which
Gideon remembered against the charwoman when the money began to go, and
it turned his suspicion towards her, because, as he said, with the state
of her home affairs, money must be a great temptation. So a watch was
set on her, and a curious thing happened.
Being small, I can get into a boot cupboard very easily, and I can also
breathe anywhere through a hole bored with a gimlet. This was done to
the door of the boot cupboard, and two other rather larger holes were
also made for my eyes. Mrs. Gouger, which was the charwoman’s name, had
to do a lot of work in this room--a large one leading out of the gym.
And there, on a certain half-holiday, I was watching her.
She worked jolly hard as far as I could say, and made a good deal of
dust, and a curious noise through her teeth when she scrubbed, which I
thought only men did when they washed horses; but there was nothing
suspicious, if you understand me. She didn’t touch a coat or anything,
though many were hanging against a wall; and the few caps about she
merely picked up and hung on the pegs.
Then, just before she finished, who should come in but Ferrars, and, to
my great astonishment, Mrs. Gouger courtesied to him as though he had
been the housekeeper or the Doctor.
Ferrars treated her with great loftiness, and evidently knew all about
her private affairs.
He said:
“And how is the child that’s got mumps?” and she said it was better. He
then gave her some advice about her husband, which I didn’t hear, and
she blessed him for all his goodness to her, and said God had sent him
to a lone, struggling woman, and that he would reap a thousandfold what
he had sown. All of which, coming from Mrs. Gouger to Ferrars, seemed
very curious to me. Presently he said:
“Well, I cannot stop longer. I’m glad the child is better. Keep on at
your husband about the pledge; and here’s a shilling.”
Then Mrs. Gouger put the shilling in her pocket and blessed him again.
And Ferrars went.
That very day young Forrest lost a shilling out of his desk, which
doesn’t lock, owing to Forrest having taken the lock off to sell to
Meadowes last term.
I told Butler and Gideon what I had seen, and Butler thought it rum, and
Gideon said there was more in it than met the eye.
Butler said:
“Evidently the kid” (Ferrars is a kid from Butler’s point of view) “has
given the charwoman tin before, or else she wouldn’t have blessed him.
Now the question is, How much pocket-money does Ferrars get?”
And I said:
“A shilling a week.”
“When does he get it?”
“Mondays.”
Butler said, “Ah!” but nothing seemed to strike him, and Gideon thought
that Mrs. Gouger ought to be spoken to. This Gideon undertook to do; and
the next week he did. What happened was that Mrs. Gouger said all that
she had before said to Ferrars about her husband and children, but added
that a young gentleman with a most Christian heart had lately interested
himself in her misfortunes. Gideon asked if it was a Dunston chap, and
Mrs. Gouger answered that she was not at liberty to say. She seemed
rather defiant about it, Gideon thought, and, in fact, when he pressed
her for the amount the chap gave her, she told Gideon to mind his own
business. A watch was still kept, especially on Ferrars; and once Butler
did an awfully cunning thing by setting Ferrars to watch and setting
another chap to watch Ferrars, if you follow what I mean. The other chap
was Butler himself, and the room was a dormitory. But it came out rather
awkwardly for Butler, because he sneezed at the very start, and Ferrars
got out from under the bed where he had arranged to watch, and found
Butler watching behind a coat against the wall. Then they had a row,
because Ferrars evidently thought Butler was there to watch him; which
he was.
The end of the affair came out rather tame in its way, and only shows
what awfully peculiar ideas some chaps have. Gideon finally spoke to
Slade, the head of the school, and though Slade doesn’t like Gideon,
owing to his way of making money by usury, yet it was such a serious
affair that he listened all through and promised to go to the Doctor.
Gideon had actually kept an account of all the money stolen, and it
amounted now to the tremendous sum of four pounds five shillings and
sixpence, including Morrant’s half-sovereign.
Then, after Dr. Dunston knew, we heard one day from Fowle that he had
sent for Mrs. Gouger to his study, and that she had been there fully
half an hour and come out crying. Fowle had listened as best he could
till the Doctor’s butler had come by and told him to hook it; but he had
heard nothing except one remark in the voice of Mrs. Gouger, and that
remark was, “Four pound five and sixpence, sir, and a godsend if ever
money was.”
Gideon said her mentioning of the exact sum was a very ominous thing for
Ferrars. And what was more ominous still happened that evening, for
Ferrars wasn’t at prep. or prayers.
There were a number of ideas about as to what it all meant, and Corkey
minimus, who always tries to get among chaps bigger than himself and say
clever things, came out with a theory that Mrs. Gouger was Ferrars’s
mother, and that Ferrars was therefore stealing and making the money
over to her. But Butler merely smacked his head when he heard it, and
told Corkey minimus not to be a little ass.
Gideon was the only chap who hadn’t any idea. He knew Ferrars’s great
notions about helping the poor and giving tithes to parsons, and so on,
but he said for a chap to steal money and hand it over to a charwoman in
charity was contrary to human nature. All the same, if a thing actually
happens, it can’t be contrary to human nature. Anyway, after prayers
next morning the Doctor stopped the school in chapel and explained
everything.
He said:
"My boys, while it is true that you come to Merivale to be instructed
by me and those who labor here among you on my behalf, it is also true
that I learn occasionally from those whom I teach. Indeed, new
problems are almost as often set by you for my solution as by me for
yours, and seldom has a more intricate difficulty confronted me than
that which yesterday challenged my attention. There has recently
happened among us a mysterious disappearance of coins of the realm.
Now a shilling, a sixpence, a penny-piece, if deposited in one spot,
will usually remain there until removed by human agency. And the human
agent who removes money which belongs to another without that other’s
sanction is a thief. Boys, briefly there has been a thief among you--a
thief whose moral obliquity has taken such an extraordinary turn,
whose views of rectitude have become so distorted, that even my own
experience of school-boy ethics cannot parallel his performance. This
lad has looked around him upon the world, and found in it, as we all
must find, a vast amount of suffering and privation, of honest toil
and of humble heroism, displayed by the lowest among us. He has also
observed that Providence is pleased to make wide distinctions between
the rich and the poor; he has noted that where one labors for daily
bread another reaps golden harvests without the trouble of putting in
the sickle. This extraordinary boy contrasted the position of one of
these humble workers with that of those among whom his own lot was
thrown here, and he found that whereas that obscure but necessary and
excellent person, Mrs. Gouger, she whose duty it is to cleanse, scour,
and otherwise purify the disorder produced by our assemblies--he
found, I say, that whereas Mrs. Gouger worked extremely hard for sums
not considerable, albeit handsome in connection with the nature of her
labors, others of the human family--yourselves--were in receipt of
weekly allowances of varying amounts for which you toiled not, neither
did you spin.
“This unhappy lad allowed his mind to brood on the apparent injustice of
such an arrangement, and instead of coming to his head-master for an
explanation of this and other problems which arose to puzzle his
immature intelligence, permitted himself the immoral, the scandalous,
the disgraceful and horribly mistaken course of righting the balance
from his point of view. This could only be effected by defiance of those
divine laws which govern all properly constituted bodies of human
society. Ferrars--I need not conceal his name any longer--Ferrars broke
one commandment in order to obey another. His fatuous argument, as it
was elaborated yesterday to me, stands based on error; his crime was the
result of the most complicated ignorance and vicious sophism it has ever
been my lot to discover in a boy of twelve. He did evil that good might
come. Ascertaining from the inspired Word that ’charity covereth a
multitude of sins,’ he imagined it must extend to cover that forbidden
by the Eighth Commandment. This commandment he broke no less than
fourteen times. You ask with horror why. That the domestic affairs of
Mrs. Gouger might be ameliorated. He took the pocket-money of his
colleagues, and with it modified those straits into which poverty and
conjugal difficulties have long cast Mrs. Gouger. It was Ferrars’s
unhappy, and I may say unparalleled, design to go on appropriating the
money of his school-mates until a sum of five pounds had been raised and
conveyed to Mrs. Gouger. Of this total, with deplorable ingenuity, he
had already subtracted from various pockets the sum of four pounds five
shillings and sixpence; it was his intention to continue these
depredations until the entire sum had been collected. But the end has
come. The facts have been placed before me, and I confess to you that
perhaps never have I been confronted with a problem more peculiar. After
a lengthy conversation with those who support me here, and after placing
the proposition before a higher tribunal than any which earth has to
offer, I have come to a curious decision. I have determined to leave the
fate of the boy Ferrars in your hands. This time to-morrow I shall
expect Slade, as representing the school, to inform me of your decision,
and to-day, contrary to custom, will be a half-holiday, that the school
may debate the question and conclude upon it. I would point out that
there is no middle course here, in my opinion. Either Ferrars must be
forgiven after a public apology to the establishment he has outraged, or
he must be expelled. As for the money, if those who have lost it will
apply to me between one and two o’clock to-day, each shall have his
share again.”
Well, you may guess what a jaw there was that afternoon; and finally,
after hours of talk, Slade decided the point must be arranged by putting
papers into a hat. If you drew a cross on the paper it meant that you
wanted Ferrars to be expelled; and if you drew a naught, that meant he
was to be let off. You were not bound to say how you voted, and the
excitement when the votes were counted was something frightful. Ferrars
little knew what was going on.
At last the numbers were read out:
For expulsion 124
Against expulsion 101
And Slade and Bradwell were mad when Slade read them, and said that
Merivale was disgraced. But Gideon and Butler and Ashby major and
Trelawny said not, and thought it wasn’t a case for anything but
justice. The Doctor made no remark when he heard what had happened, but
I heard him tell the new master, Thompson, a day afterwards that perhaps
the Lower School ought not to have been allowed to vote, as small boys
would merely have understood that Ferrars had stolen money and nothing
else. Their minds, the Doctor said, were not big enough to take in the
peculiar nature of the case. But Thompson said he honestly believed the
school was perfectly right, and that the subtleties of the case were not
for that court; and the Doctor sighed and said it might be so.
Anyway, Ferrars went. We never saw him again, and the only cheerful
thing about the end of it was that Steggles was badly scored off. You
see he nipped off to the Doctor among the first, and said Ferrars had
stolen ten shillings from him too. But it happened that Ferrars had kept
the most careful account of all the money he had raised for Mrs. Gouger
and the people he had raised it from. But he had never taken a farthing
from Steggles. So Steggles was flogged by Mannering in his best form;
which shows that things which are frightfully sad in themselves often
produce fine results in a roundabout sort of manner.